Bush-bashing in Fiordland

Knee deep in mud, waist deep in water and neck deep in ferns and grass. Had a true Hobbit experience tramping off track in Fiordland national park this weekend.

Our trip started off right after work on Wednesday when the three of us set off heading south driving until some ungodly hour in the night and having to stop at a random place in Te Anau. Didn't choose the best place... Received a personal wake up by a lady from the council and were asked to leave as we had set up camp on private property... should have known that there were houses near by as the sound of sprinklers could be heard all night...

Anyway, after an early start I was struggling to keep my eyes open, but the views were so incredible that I did my best not to fall asleep. We parked right by the forest where our 'track' began. After about 15 minutes of bush-bashing through quite dense vegetation we entered a clearing. However, I think I would have been happier in the bush as the whole clearing was a giant swamp with pools that were waist deep... I was so set on not getting wet that I took extra care to step on vegetation consisting of flax and denser moss. Almost ended up falling head first in one pool (flax saved me) but dunked my feet in so wasn't too bothered about going in knee deep in the mud after that. 

After this oh so joyous walk in the muck we finally came to the river, washed off the mud when crossing it and had lunch in the sunshine :) We then went on to tramp up the Florence stream going through the water, then the bush, crossing the stream many times to try and find the less dense forest with more deer trails and less spiky plants. Beautiful views opened up on every river bend and I became really glad that I was doing this.

For the first night we set up camp in the forest and spent the whole evening fighting with the sand flies to which there were no end until night fell (made me miss the days when mosquitoes were the only worry...). We woke up in the morning to find them completely covering the outside of the tent, felt like something from a horror film where the insects were coming to get you. So, after breakfast in the safety of our tent we were off again. Plenty more ground to cover :)

When we walked past a large mossy yet dry open space we decided to set up camp and wonder a bit further up the river to what we thought would be some lakes. Instead we reached a beautiful waterfall with a pool in which we spotted a trout. Of course Niko's fisherman instincts kicked in right away so he stayed behind to try and catch it while we hiked up the cliffs for a better look at the waterfall. As soon as we got up we heard Niko yell out that he was successful. And so we had probably the best dinner while camping ever: spaghetti with trout and sauce we improvised from some pumpkin soup :P 

Had to defend against the sandflies again, running around, dancing, doing cartwheels (or in my case attempting them and falling down on the soft moss repeatedly). The guys fashioned some interesting outfits to defend on another level. Also, somehow smoke doesn't deter them as it does mosquitoes which really disappointed us as it would have been an easy fix.

Woke up the next morning to find that my watch had stopped and so we had no idea how to tell what time it was. It was cloudy so the sun wasn't going to help us either. We decided it must be quite late already as we had woken up pretty late the day before as well. However, we managed to walk the whole way back and get to the car at 5pm so maybe it wasn't that late after all :P

Test number 1 - poke it

We spent the night at a camping place near Queenstown where Niko confused a guy when he was looking for bugs at night (apparently people try to find gold in the lake and the guy was surprised when Niko said he always finds what he's looking for :D ). Had a look around Queenstown the next day. Quite a busy place, maybe I'll come back when it's not the middle of tourist season... Anyway, on the way home we stopped for a bit of bouldering and the guys did some cliff jumping into the river.

This was truly an amazing experience, going into the wilderness and being so close to nature... Simply incredible.

The cuddle tree